The eradication of poverty in South Africa

In its 1997 Human Development Report, the UNDP makes the following observation:

"If poverty is to be reduced, policy makers must avoid 'ruthless' growth that leads to increasing income inequality. Contrary to some perceptions, inequality usually hinders growth…Poor countries urgently need to accelerate economic growth…Something else is needed - mainstreaming the commitment to eradicate poverty…Poverty eradication must be a core priority of national economic policy…"

The key categories in this paragraph are economic growth, poverty reduction and reduction of inequalities in wealth and income.

The extract brings into sharp focus the fact that these are interconnected categories.

Economic growth is a necessary condition for the reduction of poverty and inequality. At the same time, the reduction of poverty and inequality are necessary conditions for the achievement of high and sustained rates of economic growth.

The paragraph we have quoted above was not written with any specific reference to our country. It summarises global human experience in the fight for a better life for all.

Nevertheless, it is directly relevant to what we ourselves, as a country and people, must do as we pursue this goal.

We have to achieve high and sustained rates of economic growth. We have to conduct a sustained and successful offensive against the widespread and endemic poverty in our country. We must make visible progress in reducing the socio-economic disparities that continue to scar and characterise our society.

No reasonable person in our country will disagree with any of these three propositions. Neither will anybody contest the fact that they are interconnected and are dependent one on the other.

Earlier this week, the Black Business Council (BBC) presented to our government its "National Integrated Black Economic Empowerment Strategy", (the Strategy).

The government committed itself to respond to the BBC after spending the next four weeks studying the report. Accordingly, at this stage we cannot comment specifically on any of the observations and proposals contained in the Strategy.
However, there are various important matters of principle contained within the report on which we should comment, however briefly.

The first of these is that the Strategy contains many important proposals that should be studied and assessed by as many of our people as possible.

The prevalent view is that Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) is about the emergence of a few successful, and therefore rich, black business people.

Accordingly, many see it as a mere side show to our continuing struggle for a prosperous, non-racial and non-sexist South Africa.

Indeed, to express their opposition to black economic empowerment, some of the opposition parties argue that it is nothing more than a strategy by an ANC-led government to enrich a select few of its cronies, (with kickbacks to the politicians), while leaving the masses of our people to suffer in poverty.

The Strategy gives the lie to the view that BEE is a matter of concern only to a few black people who are the only ones destined to enjoy the fruits of our liberation.

Among others, the Strategy contains two important observations that follow below.

The first of these states that "The report presents an opportunity for South Africa to break the cycle of underdevelopment and continued marginalisation of the majority of people within the mainstream economy, thereby launching the country onto a course of sustained, even spectacular, rates of economic growth."

The second observes that "…South Africa's economic growth performance remains disappointing. Continued high levels of unemployment and ever-increasing poverty threaten to undermine the stability of our new democracy. The country still has one of the most unequal distributions of income in the world. This is a reflection of the extremely low levels of black participation in the economy. The report concludes that the reason for this is that the country has not yet overcome the Apartheid crisis…Racism remains ingrained across all sectors of South African society."

These comments, especially the sentence immediately above, point to the challenge we all face as South Africans.

Because of the apartheid legacy, the conclusions are inescapable that:

• the struggle for economic growth is also a struggle for non-racism and non-sexism;
• the struggle to eradicate poverty is also a struggle for non-racism and non-sexism; and,
• the struggle for an egalitarian society is also a struggle for non-racism and non-sexism.

From this, and consistent with the observations made by the UNDP, we must necessarily draw the same conclusion arrived at by the BBC.

This is that the struggle for black economic empowerment, contrary to its being the exclusive and self-serving concern of a black elite, is a struggle for the achievement of the integrated objectives of economic growth, poverty eradication and the building of an egalitarian society.

It must therefore address such matters as overcoming the scourge of unemployment and poverty; ending the race and gender imbalances among the working people at the work place; achieving all-round rural development; effecting urban renewal; implementing a successful and appropriate human development strategy; modernising our economy; and, entrenching the democratic order.

Clearly, therefore, black economic empowerment is not merely about the enrichment of a few. As the Strategy states, it has to be "an integrated and coherent socio-economic process."

As part of this socio-economic process, we must aim "at redressing the imbalances of the past by seeking to substantially and equitably transfer and confer the ownership, management and control of South Africa's financial and economic resources to the majority of its citizens", as the Strategy puts it.

A proper reading of the report will show that in stating this aim, the BBC is not arguing that we should adopt a policy of reverse apartheid, according to which our white compatriots should become "have-nots" and the black South Africans "the haves".

What the Strategy seeks is an equitable order with regard to questions of ownership, management and control of our country's productive resources.

Again, I do not believe that any but die-hard racists would object to this objective, which is both contained in our national constitution and is a necessary condition for peace and stability in our country.

However, the problem our country faces lies hidden in a sentence contained in the Strategy, which we quoted above - "racism remains ingrained across all sectors of South African society."
These days, it is as easy to get South Africans to express their abhorrence of racism and racial discrimination as it is difficult to find any South African who would confess to having been a supporter of apartheid.

Similarly, as we have said, no reasonable South African will contest that we face a national challenge to strive for economic growth and the eradication of poverty and inequality.

Thus we could reach the conclusion that we have obtained national consensus about the importance of realising the objectives of black economic empowerment, as explained earlier in this Letter.

The fact of the matter, however, is that it is when we proceed from theory to practice that our problems start, and we discover that no such national consensus exists.

Then we come to understand the truth and the burdensome weight of the statement made in the Strategy, that "racism remains ingrained across all sectors of South African society."

Put simply, we then find that, in fact and at best, many among those who belong among "the haves", think that the challenge of achieving black economic empowerment has nothing to do with them.

They think that it is not their business and therefore do nothing either to promote or to resist it.

Others, among these "haves", consider black economic empowerment to be inimical to their interests and therefore something to be defeated through both passive and active resistance.

Accordingly, these consider it to be their business to use all resources available to them to fight against it.

With regard to both cases, it is clear that we are faced with a continuing challenge to convince all our people that whatever the privileged position that some in our country might enjoy as a result of apartheid, it is in their direct interest that they actively support the integrated objectives of economic growth, poverty eradication and equality.

Accordingly, we must convince them that, objectively, it is in their material interest that South Africa is transformed into a prosperous, non-racial and non-sexist stable democracy.

It is also clear that to achieve these objectives, we must overcome the persisting reality of the mindset among many of our citizens, that gives substance to the statement made in the Strategy that "racism remains ingrained across all sectors of South African society."

If we were to realise all these goals, this would enable us to meet some of the aims spelt out in the Strategy.

For example, our financial institutions would come to understand that it is in their interest to facilitate access to capital by emerging black business, which can neither provide the collateral to secure their loans, nor afford high interest rates.

Our big corporations would consider it their task to use their resources to facilitate and support the growth of small and medium black business.

These and other companies would also see that it is in the interests both of business and the country that sufficient resources are committed to human resource development and the eradication of race, gender and disability discrimination at the work place.

Established business would also understand that it is in its own interest to address issues of race and gender equity in the direction and management of the thousands of private companies that determine the future of our economy and society.

Property owners in our city centres would come to realise that it helps neither them nor our urban areas to allow these city centres to become urban slums and headquarters of crime syndicates, merely to make maximum profit.

However, everyday life in our country tells us that we are confronted by an uphill struggle.

Only recently, seeking to put more money into his own pocket, a white farmer exercised his legal rights to frustrate a process of land restitution that, in the words of the Strategy, would have helped to ensure "broader and meaningful participation in the economy by black people in order to achieve sustainable development and prosperity."

Black engineering companies find it increasingly difficult to get jobs from white companies, being forced to depend on work generated by the public sector.

Whether intended or not, this helps to frustrate the objective of achieving the objective of the "broader and meaningful participation in the economy by black people in order to achieve sustainable development and prosperity."

Young black law graduates find it very difficult to find law firms that will enable them to serve articles. This helps to perpetuate the same result of black exclusion.
Some from among the black community are happy to receive fat fees for perpetrating the fraud of populating our country with the phenomenon of black masks and white faces, as rented blacks.

This, too, driven by the morality of hunger, which dictates the co-operation of the black aspirant bourgeois or petty bourgeois in the perpetration of the fraud, obstructs the advance towards the "broader and meaningful participation in the economy by black people in order to achieve sustainable development and prosperity."

Some in our society have committed themselves to wage an unrelenting struggle to defeat the Minerals Development Bill.

They do this despite the fact that this Bill seeks to: make our mining regulatory framework consistent with best global practice; increase investment and jobs in mining; ensure that mining contributes to the vigorous growth of our economy; enhance the competitiveness of this sector; enable black as well as foreign companies to invest in mining; enable it to contribute to the important goals of the eradication of poverty and inequality; and ensure that it remains a sunrise industry.

Whether intended or not, if this determined and conscious opposition succeeds, it will help to frustrate the objective of achieving the objective of the "broader and meaningful participation in the economy by black people in order to achieve sustainable development and prosperity."

The future of our country as a winning nation as well as the happiness of all our people, both black and white, will be decided not by those who seek to define for all of us a false national agenda.

The outcome of the effort to achieve these objectives will be determined, in good measure, by how we respond, as a people, to the challenges spelt out in "National Integrated Black Economic Empowerment Strategy" that was presented to our government by the Black Business Council earlier this week.

As we consider these challenges, taking into account the objective reality in our country, we must place at the centre of our strategic thinking what the UNDP said:

• that 'poor countries urgently need to accelerate economic growth';
• that 'contrary to some perceptions, inequality usually hinders growth'; and,
• that 'poverty eradication must be a core priority of national economic policy'.

In his book, "Development As Freedom", the Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, Amartya Sen, writes:

"We live in a world of unprecedented opulence…And yet we also live in a world with remarkable deprivation, destitution and oppression…Overcoming these problems is a central part of the exercise of development."

Media in SA

Proposed agency offers springboard to greater diversity and access

The importance to democracy and social development of a free, independent and diverse media lies at the heart of the proposed Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA).

In proposing such an agency, the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS), which is leading the project, recognises all citizens need to have access to the widest range of views and information to effectively participate in the political, social, cultural and economic life of the country.

The history of media in South Africa, together with the socio-economic conditions and vast resource imbalances in the country, mean that today very few South Africans have access to a wide range of views and even fewer have opportunity to express through the media their views and reflect on the issues that affect their lives.

Government released a position paper on the MDDA in November last year. Following a period for public comments, the National Assembly's committee on communications recently held hearings on the proposed agency.

While a number of the submissions to these hearings reflect different views on the functioning, financing and areas of work of the agency, most stakeholders agree on the need for mechanisms to address the lack of diversity and access in South African media.

The media environment in the country is very much the product of apartheid, where resources were concentrated in the hands of a racial minority, dissenting views were silenced by legal and extra-legal methods, and the

state broadcaster, the SABC, was used as an instrument of the National Party.

Much has changed in the last few years. The SABC has moved from being a state broadcaster to fulfilling a public broadcasting mandate, meeting public rather than party requirements. The broadcast environment has opened up with the sale of a number of SABC radio stations, the licensing of a number of commercial and community radio stations and the licensing of South Africa's first private 'free-to-air' television station.

The print media, once dominated by a big business 'duopoly', has been subject to a significant unbundling process resulting in increased black ownership and some changes at the level of management. There have also been changes in the racial and gender composition of many news rooms.

Nevertheless, these changes have not begun to approach the kind of diversity and coverage which would fundamentally alter the access of South Africans to the media.

As noted by GCIS Chief Executive Officer Joel Netshitenzhe, newspapers are read by less than a fifth of the population, "because many do not read and many others cannot afford newspapers or find that the only thing to read in their area are road signs."

"Most people in rural or peri-urban areas and even cities have access only to national public radio which, by its nature, cannot speak to local concerns and needs. Twenty percent are beyond the reach of the minimum signal quality required for FM broadcasts," he said in his submission to the communications committee hearings.

The lack of infrastructure and social development are not the only barriers to greater media diversity. Many would-be media initiatives are hindered by a lack of capital, expertise, experience or viable markets.

The MDDA is seen as one vehicle to help tackle these obstacles. It will promote media development and diversity by providing support in the form of funding, training and capacity building to community and small commercial media, empowerment groups, diversity projects and training programmes. South Africans who have been historically and geographically disadvantaged will be targeted as beneficiaries.

It will play a role in stimulating debate and creating awareness about the importance of media diversity, including playing an advocacy role. The MDDA will do research, propose policy and make recommendations to other organisations, including regulators, government, training institutions and funders.

It is proposed the MDDA be a body established by law which operates independently of government, the media industry, donors and beneficiaries. It will be governed by a board and will account to parliament and an annual review forum of key stakeholders. The MDDA will not be able to interfere in the content of newspaper, television or radio station.

The position paper suggests the MDDA would need to raise R300m over the first five years in order to assist around 221 radio stations, community

television, 45 existing print media projects, 30 new publications and initiatives in the new media sector. It is proposed these funds be raised through equal contributions from government, the media industry and donors. The contribution from the media industry could be raised through raising the current voluntary levy on advertising spending from 1 to 1.5 percent and ensuring proper collection.

This financing arrangement, according to Netshitenzhe, is informed by the emphasis on the partnership needed in a venture of this sensitivity. "The financial contribution will give the three partners a joint say in how the agency is operationalised, so as to ensure the agreed goals and objectives are met," he said.

MORE INFORMATION:

• Position Paper on Media Development and Diversity Agency, GCIS

Morality

Moral Values and South African Society

An Opinion Piece from the ANC Commission for Religious Affairs

This article reflects on the signs, causes and remedies to the crisis of morality affecting our country at this time. It is a crisis situation, like a major famine, or outbreak of war, demoralising every aspect of society. It aggravates all other problems, and the regeneration of moral values will alleviate all other challenges. The vicious destructive effect of moral delinquency affects all sectors of state and civil society, and demands a united response from all sectors irrespective of their political, racial, class or religious differences.

The signs of moral failure

The signs of moral degeneration in our society are well known, and summarised by former President Mandela thus:

"the corruption of public servants by the private sector; the low level of tax morality; white collar crime and the subversion of business ethics; venality, theft and fraud within the public sector; corruption in the criminal justice system; the uninhibited commitment to unbridled self-gratification which underlies such crimes as rape and child abuse; disrespect for human life and the inviolability of the individual person and the easy resort to the use of force in the ordering of interpersonal relations; the acceptance of robbery and theft as a means of personal enrichment and advancement; mendacity in the conduct of public affairs; contempt for the law and the state; and the virtual collapse among the Africans of a system of social behaviour informed by the precepts of humanism which, historically, have informed African culture."

The brazen acceptance and promotion of unethical attitudes has promoted immorality as a way of life throughout our society. The fact that it is a global problem does not preclude our own responsibility.

Women and men experience their human being in four ways: body, mind, spirit and community. It is helpful to use this four fold analysis to diagnose the problem of immoral behaviour, and to seek solutions.

What are the fundamental causes of this moral failure?

Body

Physical conditions have a major effect on moral behaviour. Poverty can inhibit morality, and a society so structured that millions are forced to live with hunger, homelessness, sickness and death eats away at ethics. An economic system which makes it impossible for much of the population to obtain a livelihood compels millions to beg, steal or die. Society must offer a viable alternative to crime. Providing for the body is essential if circumstances are not to twist moral imperatives. This is a position which cannot be adjudicated by comfortable people who have the power to be well fed and well housed, and who have not known want. The agenda must be set by the poor.

Greed, however, affects all. Consumerism, which insists that the good life consists of promoting and pandering to the physical possession of more and more things, is as morally debilitating as poverty. Consumerism makes little fuss about how those things are obtained, and the moral tone of much of the advertising industry is questionable.

The effect of sexual instincts within the human body have not changed in a million years, but the deliberate promotion of sexual abandon in the present generation is a marked feature. This major physical function is the drive behind much delight and productivity, but is also directly related to moral abuse and HIV/AIDS. It is a physical urge which, like hunger, can become uncontrolled and lead to unmitigated tragedy.

The legitimate need for passion, possessions, and power, can lead to illegitimate greed for the same things.

Mind

Mental attitudes have contaminated by the colonial and apartheid era in which society as a whole was nurtured in immoral attitudes. The mind sets were twisted by the circumstances, and many will continue to be twisted until they are straightened out. Former President Mandela continued:

"For a long time our country suffered under an illegitimate system of governance and therefore a regime of laws and organs of state which enjoyed no moral authority in the eyes of the majority of the people, including the oppressor population itself… The wall of fundamental moral values which deters the individual from committing wrong acts collapsed. The state itself exemplified the collapse of morality in the conduct of human affairs and could not but teach the citizen to follow suit. In these circumstances it was inevitable that a philosophy represented by such notions as ‘each one for himself , and the devil take the hindmost’, ‘the survival of the fittest’ and ‘ the unhampered pursuit of self-interest’, would take hold."

When the political changes occurred in 1994, these attitudes continued. The mental corruption includes racist attitudes which are excused under various subterfuges, a loss of respect for elders by the youth - and of youth by the elders. The accumulation of money has become the legitimate standard of value which dominates our thinking on politics, education, marriage, and the purpose of satisfactory life. There is a mental acceptance of economic injustice, and a widespread lowering or outright rejection of moral standards.

The media is unquestionably guilty of publicising and perpetuating anti-social behaviour, violence and crime, in the name of ‘free expression’, ’giving the public what it wants’, or ‘providing what the advertisers wish to pay for’.

Religion, though it calls for moral behaviour, is also guilty of mental attitudes which promote the very opposite, and the criticisms of the 1986 Kairos Document are still pertinent:

"Social and political affairs are seen as worldly affairs that have nothing to do with the spiritual concerns of the church. Spirituality has been understood to be purely private and individualistic. Public affairs and social problems are thought to be beyond the sphere of spirituality’. ‘This kind of spirituality … leaves so many Christians and church leaders in a state of near paralysis.’"

This sort of mentality, often promoted by people who consider themselves to be vastly superior to the immorality of the nation, in fact produces the climate in which morality withers.

Spirit

It is not necessary to be religious in order to promote ethical living, and a high value system, usually related to an appreciation and commitment to the common good of society. Such a secular spirituality is wide spread, and is noticeable in attitudes to others rather than philosophical statements. But although not limited to left wing politics, few would deny that secular spirituality has been seriously affected by the rethinking demanded by the apparent collapse of socialism. It has also been affected by the threats to religious spirituality, and the rise of the pseudo-spirituality of the Market.

For over a century the western world has been experiencing a loss of belief in God, and many religions in South Africa have testified to a falling off in their support. This article is not to argue for or against the existence of God, but notes that faith in a Supreme Power of Goodness and Love carried with it a sense of moral values, of standards of behaviour to benefit the common good, and of personal holiness as the objective of this life and preparation for life after death. The decline of belief in God has been accompanied by a decline of this focus on morality. People may have disobeyed God in the old days, but if he no longer exists at all this encouragement and constraint has been removed. If God is not telling us what to do we can do what we please ... unless another moral standard is accepted.

Many people have been alienated by the religious package of structures and practices, rather than with spirituality itself, and no longer appear at church, mosque, synagogue or temple. They have not deliberately embraced evil, but some have become prey to negative moral influences.

The major contender as alternative god is the Market, whose ideology now dominates, and whose worship has a major detrimental effect on morality. Professor Harvey Cox has shown that the Market is lauded as an object of worship, a god which is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, a god who must be obeyed and must not be challenged, a god in whom we must have faith even if it makes us suffer a while through adjustment schemes because all will come right in the end.

This is a major assault on our spirituality because the Market is openly and deliberately predicated on selfishness. Its condemnation has been amply prescribed by the arch­capitalist George Soros who Mandela quoted extensively in the speech to which we have already referred . Soros said:

"Unsure of what they stand for people increasingly rely on money as the criterion of value. What is more expensive is considered better. The value of a work of art can be judged by the price it fetches. People deserve respect and admiration because they are rich. What used to be a medium of exchange has usurped the place of fundamental values, reversing the relationship postulated by economic theory. What used to be professions have turned into businesses. The cult of success has replaced a belief in principles. Society has lost its anchor."

Community

Morality is also affected by our experience of living as part of a human community. All traditional pre-civilisation societies were skilled in collective responsibility, respected the Earth, the land and its fruits, and cared for others as a normal part of living. This is strongly apparent in our own African history and traditions, and is still seen in rural areas where there remains a strong sense of communal ownership of land, and communal responsibility for those in need is still evident. That sense of a caring society, of an ubuntu way of life in the community, has been severely threatened by the advent of western civilisation based on individualism. Admiration for those who take personal responsibility within society, has been replaced by admiration for those who can manipulate society for their own advantage, with a profoundly negative effect on morals.

Neither black nor white communities in South Africa were experienced in living in freedom, and both were unprepared for it when freedom came. Political freedom was not accompanied by an understanding and commitment to economic, social, or religious liberation. Emphasis on individualism has not been translated into an understanding of community. The culture of individualism destroys the culture of cooperation. The culture of obedience undermines the culture of responsibility. And there is plenty of evidence that the self-centred oppressive forces which manipulated the apartheid society to their own advantage are alive and well in the liberated democratic society too.

How can we replace these causes of moral failure?

We need a proactive way to change society and build a new nation. This will draw on our double heritage of African and Western experience, and can thus expect to be different from both. We now follow the same analysis of human being into the positive role of body, mind, spirit and community.

Body: the physical conditions of moral regeneration

Poverty must be eradicated. The enactment of our peoples right to economic justice requires an active assault on economic disparity, the restructuring of our economy to provide everyone with a basic livelihood, and a major campaign to change the structures and the attitudes which prevent these changes. By and large the country has turned its back on a command economy in which government takes possession of all the wealth in the land and reassigns it as it thinks fit. The alternative is a quest by government, the private sector, and public opinion, to design and enact a new system, the economics of ubuntu.

It will require strong new initiatives at many levels as people sit down to think out how to remove the sin of poverty and establish a climate in which morality can flourish, where they live. The many issues will include land ownership and use, the environment and ecology, relations with globalisation and Africanisation, public and private responsibility, but the basic factor is the establishment of physical conditions of life in which it is possible for moral communities to flourish.

Mind: the mental conditions for morality

We need to establish a vision of where we are going, an intellectual and psychological motivation for building a new nation. This concept of a good society will of necessity include an analysis and rejection of the continuing effects of apartheid ideology and practices, demythologising the Market, and an open examination of the options open to us, led by each government department in association with civil society. It is a process in which government will need to formulate and enact policies to empower business, labour, religions, education, culture, the media, and other sectors to find their role

The private sector itself must take responsibility for re-educating the private sector on the economic issues involved from a responsible human perspective, recognising that Money is not a private possession, but a social medium with a social origin and a social outcome. The advantages of globalisation must be assessed and pursued with the moral object of benefiting the whole of our country’s workforce, not abandoning them to unemployment. It requires great moral integrity by the owners of capital to devise moral solutions.

All sectors will need to recognise that South Africa is involved in a struggle of greater dimensions than that fought against apartheid, and the population needs to relearn the lessons of that earlier struggle. This process will tax the best brains, and demand experiments in action and reflection at many local levels. It will also mean that we turn our eyes repeatedly to the continent of Africa.

Spirit: the spiritual conditions for morality

Faith in our success is crucial. In the struggle for liberation we discovered a vision, unity and commitment which stretched across all other differences. It had a strong spiritual component in that it was just, caring, uniting, and its vision was rooted in the vital force of faith that the struggle would succeed. In Africa we have a holistic approach to life which sees spiritual and secular, faith and politics, individual and community as inseparable parts of the whole. We have much in common, and have much to learn from the world’s religions, but we need to bring it into the united African spirituality which drove us and held us together in the years of struggle, and can do so again.

It is a unique challenge not only to the religious institutions, but for other sectors including women, youth, entertainment, and the media, to educate the public on how to deal with the issues we face. Spirituality is the yeast of moral development.

Community

The African Renaissance seeks the rebirth of spiritual values which are in the depths of all humanity. It recognises that although each of us has personal responsibilities, these are accomplished by working together with others in small groups, and in the whole continent. Freedom means social responsibility.

Many aspects of moral regeneration require a communal collective experience. The social acceptance of new economic activity to banish poverty, the social disapproval which rejects criminality and overcomes the fear of criminals, the social customs which will lead to the eradication of AIDS and the caring of its patients and their families, the theological renewal required to permeate all spheres of spiritual development in the quest of a renewed continent, all these demand collective communal involvement.

Nations are built in neighbourhoods, and neighbourhoods find great strength in families. Government and all sectors need to engage in open enquiries to evaluate what community action has priority status to develop the common good of our people in each area - and then do it.

Conclusion

The moral regeneration of our society is the next step in our growth as a people, the natural outcome of defeating colonialism and apartheid. That largely negative task was crucial to defeat the massive strength of the apartheid regime, with the constant backing it received from the big players in the western world. Now we are faced with the largely positive task of building the type of society set out in our 1996 Constitution to:

• Heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice, and fundamental human rights;
• Lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law;
• Improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person; and
• Build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations.

MORE INFORMATION:

• The Moral renewal of Society

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